Instagram is overhauling the way it works for teenagers, promising more “built-in protections” for young people and added controls and reassurance for parents, the BBC reports.
The new “teen accounts”, for children aged 13 to 15, will force many privacy settings to be on by default, rather than a child opting in.
Teenagers’ posts will also be set to private – making them unviewable to people who don’t follow them, and they must approve all new followers.
These settings can only be changed by giving a parent or guardian oversight of the account, or when the child turns 16.
Social media companies are under pressure worldwide to make their platforms safer, with concerns that not enough is being done to shield young people from harmful content.
The NSPCC called the announcement a “step in the right direction” but said Instagram’s owner, Meta, appeared to “putting the emphasis on children and parents needing to keep themselves safe.”
Rani Govender, the NSPCC’s online child safety policy manager, said Meta and other social media companies needed to take more action themselves.
